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Statement 



of 



The Strike Situation 
in Colorado 




A Report 
of the Special Committee 
Appointed to Investigate 

and Report to 

Kensington Council No. 1 6 

Junior Order 

United American Mechanics 

Denver, Colorado 



Fourth Edition 



Unanimously Adopted May Nineteen 
Nineteen Hundred Fourteen 

Copyrighted, 1914, by C. W.Varnum, Denver, Colo. 






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JWH 29 1914 

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Statement 

OF THE 

STRIKE SITUATION IN 
COLORADO 

Denver, Colo., May 19, 1914. 
To the Officers and Members of 
Kensington Council No. 16, 

Junior Order United American Mechanics: 

Your Committee, appointed to investigate the strike 
situation in this State and to prepare a statement in 
relation thereto, would respectfully make the follow- 
ing report: 

Kensington Council No. 16, Jr. O. U. A. M., of Den- 
ver, Colorado, is a patriotic fraternal society. Its 
only interest in the present strike controversy is as 
to its effect upon the public welfare. Its membership 
is composed of professional men, workingmen and 
business men, but so far as we know not a single 
member of the Council is interested as employee, at- 
torney, employer, or in any other capacity, either 
directly or indirectly with either of the parties to the 
strike controversy now raging in this State. 

We feel, therefore, that we have the opportunity 
and that it is our right and duty to give to the Order 
and to the world an account of causes and effects, 
past, present, and future of this ill-starred contro- 
versy, and also to submit some reflections as to the 
remedy. 

Colorado's Coal Fields 

Colorado is a great coal state. We have more than 
11,000,000 acres of coal lands of which by far the 
greater part still belongs to the U. S. Government. 
473,000 acres belong to the State of Colorado as 
Trustee for the School Fund and other funds. Of 
these 473,000 acres belonging to the State less than 
14,000 are under lease and of the 14,000-. leased to 
private parties only 5,500 acres are productive. Less 
than 3% of the vast coal acreage of Colorado is held 
in private ownership. Less than 5 per cent of the 
total tonnage of coal mined in Colorado is from lands 
belonging to the State. The two greatest fields are 
popularly called the northern and southern, and they 
are both non-union. The unions have, however, 
looked upon these great fields employing in normal 
times about 13,000 men with avaricious eyes and have 
made many attempts to unionize them. In the fall of 
1913 emissaries of the union were sent here from 
Indiana, W T est Virginia, and other States and all the 
power of the United Mine Workers was focussed 
upon the southern fields, and a strike was ordered. 



2 THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 

The operators declared that they could get along 
very well without the union men, and soon, following 
their usual tactics on such occasions the union men 
began to beat up and even to kill non-union work- 
men, and on October 28th the National Guard was 
sent into the district to keep the peace. This they 
did for six months with the loss of but two lives, one 
by accident, and the other killed while resisting 
arrest with arms in his hands, neither being union 
men. 

April 17th, 1914, the troops with the exception of 
34 men left at Ludlow were withdrawn because the 
State Auditor had thrown every possible obstacle in 
the path to prevent the payment of the troops or of 
providing for their support in the field. 

Immediately upon their withdrawal pillage, arson 
and murder broke out in their most horrible form. 
April 20th came the battle of Ludlow. 

The Battle of Ludlow 

The striker's tent colony at Ludlow was an armed 
camp under strict control of the Union leaders and 
was peopled by a class of persons graphically de- 
scribed in the report of the Military Commission as 
'.'ignorant, lawless and savage South European peas- 
ants." They spoke twenty or more different lan- 
guages, and most of them could not speak English 
at all. While they were of many nationalities the 
Greeks predominated, especially as a fighting force. 

The tent colony was purposely so located as to 
command an unobstructed view of the railroad depot 
near at hand where workingmen were obliged to get 
on and off the trains. The conduct of the strikers 
during the winter was such that it was necessary to 
send a detail of soldiers to meet every train in order 
to protect the non-union men from physical violence. 

No man wishing to leave the colony and go to work 
could do so except under guard of the State troops, 
and during the winter over a hundred men were in 
this way taken from the tent colony under military 
guard at their own request. 

April 20th a detail of men was sent in the usual 
manner to rescue a man who had called for help to 
get away, and as usual the negotiations were had 
with Louis Tikas. This time for some reason the 
man was not given up, and instead the Greeks took 
to the hills and appeared to be preparing for action 
while the women and children ran to the shelter of 
a deeD gulch north of the colony. There were only 



THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 3 

34 soldiers on duty and they were scattered in small 
groups, most of them being two or three miles away. 
Tikas went back to his Greeks promising to call them 
back to the colony but failed to do so. The soldiers 
saw the Greeks running to the hills and taking pos- 
session of vantage points around them but their offi- 
cers would not allow them to fire until the strikers 
first opened fire on them. This is one of the many 
instances showing that while the soldiers suffered 
from all the dangers and liabilities of war they were 
prevented from taking advantage of its privileges. 
Had the soldiers been free to fight their enemies the 
Greeks would never have reached the hills and the 
battle would have been much shorter. As it was when 
the firing from the Greeks had lasted long enough 
to show that they really meant business the troops 
returned it and then these 34 soldiers fought and 
held at bay several hundred foreigners from 10 a. m. 
until 2 p. m. when reinforcements began to arrive,, 
though at the most there were only about 120 soldiers 
engaged. The number of strikers engaged has been 
variously estimated at from 400 to 800 men. They 
were heavily armed with the latest and best models 
of high power rifles, although their leaders had 
solemnly assured the State government that they had 
surrendered their arms. They used explosive bullets 
and so-called "poisoned" bullets (both expressly for- 
bidden by the rules of civilized warfare) and some 
of their ammunition was manufactured in Greece. 
They were amply supplied with ammunition, over 
15,000 rounds having been found in John Lawson's 
tent after the battle. 

When the reinforcements arrived the soldiers began 
to press forward and steadily drove the Greeks back 
until they took a range of sand hills where a soldier 
named Martin was wounded. The fire of the Greeks 
was concentrated upon this position and the soldiers 
were unable to hold the hills. There were but four 
men in the detachment with Martin and they were 
unable to carry him across the exposed ground, so 
they placed him in a depression in the hills where 
he would be safe from the fire from both sides and 
retreated. 

Heroic Rescue Work 

Another detachment fought its way up to the tent 
colony where they heard the cries of women and 
children. The tents had caught fire before the sold- 
iers arrived, but when they heard the cries of the 
women and children they rushed in among the burn- 
ing tents and rescued between 25 and 30 and carried 



4 THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 

them away to safety. While engaged in this humane 
work they were under constant fire from the Greeks. 
To save these women and children the soldiers, while 
still under fire from the Greeks were obliged to tear 
up tent floors which had been nailed down over the 
openings to the pits and drag the cowering occupants 
out by main force. Then these soldiers who had had 
no pay for three months took up a collection among 
themselves and raised $18.00 that night for the relief 
of these suffering women and children. 

Late in the afternoon the sand hills were retaken 
by the soldiers who then found the body of their 
comrade Martin with his head blown off and his limbs 
broken. This barbarity shocked and infuriated them 
and, of course, it was immediately reported to Lieut. 
Linderfeldt. A few minutes after this Louis Tikas 
was captured, after he had been fighting all day with 
his Greeks. Acting under the frightful stress of 
that all day's battle, where the strikers numbered 
almost 20 to 1, without water, food or rest for 
nine hours, and with the report of the atrocities 
committed upon the body of his comrade Martin 
fresh in his mind Lieut. Linderfeldt is reported to 
have committed the unsoldierlike offense of striking 
a prisoner. Whether this be true or not time will 
•determine and whether if true the excuse is sufficient 
can only be known when all the facts and circum- 
stances are developed. But at least the provocation 
was great. 

No "Massacre of the Innocents" 

There was, however, no firing on women and chil- 
dren unless it were firing by the Greeks on the 
little Snyder boy, who was killed by a striker's bullet 
and who was the only child killed or even struck by 
a bullet. Both sides agree also that no woman was 
struck by a bullet ' from either side. The thirteen 
women and children who were suffocated in the tiny 
pit under the ground not large enough for three of 
them to remain in for three hours and live were 
probably dead long before the tents caught fire. But 
in any event the soldiers could not possibly have been 
to blame in the slightest degree. The strikers had 
rifle pits in front of the colony tents and were hidden 
in the arroya or gulch behind them and were firing 
en the soldiers from both places. The strikers could 
easily have retreated from both rifle pits and from 
the arroya and still have continued the fight on 
equally as good terms from some other vantage point 
but they elected not to do so. 



THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 5 

Women and Children as a Shield 

The death of these women and children was a most 
regrettable incident of this unfortunate battle in this 
inexcusable war, but the Greeks started the war and 
commenced the battle. They also were in a position 
to know that the women and children were in the 
underground pits while the soldiers were not in a 
position to even suspect such a thing. Among civil- 
ized peoples when the men go out to war they first 
put women and children in places of safety instead 
of leaving them exposed to all the dangers of battle 
and in this case as the soldiers had seen the women 
and children running to the arroya where they would 
be absolutely safe they naturally supposed and had 
a right to suppose that they were all out of danger. 
The Greeks who must have known that some women 
and children were left in the colony could have 
retreated from the colony or could easily have 
changed the place of fighting to another point, and 
either maneuver would have stopped the battle or 
have changed the line of fire so that the women and: 
children left in the tents would have been safe. They 
chose, however, to do neither, but to continue the 
fight in a place which made it necessary for the firing 
to endanger the lives of their own women and chil- 
dren. 

The fault, then, rests squarely upon the shoulders 
of the strikers themselves and not upon the members 
of the National Guard who were stationed there to 
uphold the Constitution and laws of the State, who 
were attacked by overwhelming numbers and who 
were fighting for their lives as well. 

It is inconceivable to suppose that 34 men scattered 
in three or four groups would deliberately attack a 
very much larger force as well armed and better 
fortified than they were themselves. 

The wonder is that these 34 men should have been 
able, under any circumstances, to have defended 
themselves successfully against their desperate as- 
sailants. It is another great tribute to the splendid 
fighting material composing our National Guard. 

Machine Guns 

The troops had two machine guns, one of which 
they used all day and the other from about 4 p. m. 
These guns were never turned on the tent colony 
tself, but were used against the Greeks entrenched 
n the sand hills and rifle pits and along the railroad 
racks. 



6 THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 

Admiral Fletcher threatened to destroy Vera Cruz 
with the great cannon of the American fleet unless 
sniping from the house tops were stopped. 

Return of the National Guard 

The main body of the National Guard who had 
been returned to their homes were called back to the 
field on April 22nd, and although they had had no 
pay for three months and the families of many of 
them were suffering for the actual necessities of life, 
they loyally. took up their duty again, and if the ill- 
advised truce had not been made on the 24th peace 
would have been quickly re-established by the swift 
defeat of the strikers. As it was, the strikers took 
advantage of the so-called truce to burn and destroy 
half a dozen mines and to murder many citizens of 
the State, the troops being compelled by the terms 
of the truce to do nothing to protect either life or 
property. 

Then came the call for the federal troops, two or 
three desperate battles between the strikers and the 
National Guard brought on by the determination of 
the strikers to destroy the remaining mines in the 
district, the defeat and surrender of the strikers to 
the National Guard, the arrival of the federal troops 
and the withdrawal of the State troops from the 
strike districts. It is perhaps worthy of note that 
this so-called truce as well as the final surrender of 
the miners was negotiated by a leading lawyer of 
Denver with as much nonchalance as though he were 
drawing a stipulation for the continuance of a petty 
case in a justice court. 

Foundation of the Government 

This nation was founded upon the eternal prin- 
ciples of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, 
freedom to worship God, and freedom of labor. Free- 
dom of labor means that the laborer himself shall 
be permitted to choose whether he shall work or not, 
where he shall work, the kind of work he shall en- 
gage in and who his employer shall be. All these 
matters to be decided by the laborer for himself and 
not by someone else for him. 

Certain ignorant, ill-advised and vicious people 
have wilfully and maliciously misinterpreted these 
rights, deeming freedom of speech as license tc 
malign their neighbors, freedom of the press as 
license to distort the news and to besmirch and be 
foul this country and its institutions, deeming free- 



THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 7 

dom to worship God as license to persecute, torture, 
and even to kill those who worship him in a different 
way, and deeming freedom of labor as being license 
to forcibly prevent other men from working. 

Labor agitators have for many years preached, 
taught and practised, not only in Colorado but in 
every State in the Union the doctrine that a labor 
union can not only work or quit work as it pleases 
(which is its inalienable right), but that a labor 
union can also rightfully prevent other men from 
working, and that in order to prevent other men 
from working the union men have the right not only 
to use peaceful persuasion but also to use physical 
violence upon those other workingmen, to burn and 
destroy their houses, to kill them by secret assassina- 
tion or open murder, and that in their warfare against 
non-union men the union men have the right to openly 
fight the duly constituted authorities of both State 
and Nation and to defy and insult the flag of our 
country. 

Agitators, Not Workers! 

These labor agitators are not workers themselves 
but are mere parasites on workingmen's organiza- 
tions, and they have for many years taught their 
deluded followers class distinctions, class hatred and 
prejudice, and have encouraged class war, and people 
who ought to know better have blindly encouraged 
them in their false teachings. 

They talk of "industrial war" as glibly and glee- 
fully as though great enterprises were built up by 
the burning and destruction of property and as though 
men would be attracted to enterprises in which they 
are daily in danger of assassination. 

To them the destruction by violence of a factory 
or plant is but an incident in the carrying on of their 
'industrial war." These acts of violence indeed are 
a very important and helpful factor in their cam- 
paigns for raising money. 

These labor agitators under different names, in 
Pennsylvania as Molly Maguires, in Idaho and 
Colorado as the Western Federation of Miners, and 
now as the United Mine Workers, have openly taught 
and freely practised the use of force, even though it 
lead to murder as proper means of inciting class 
hatred and class war. 

The confession of the McNamaras as to the blow- 
ing up of the Times Building in Los Angeles and 



8 THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 

other wholesale destruction of properties by dyna- 
miters as the hired agents of the Structural Steel 
Workers illustrates their method of procedure. 

This present trouble in Colorado was deliberately 
brought about not because of any conditions in the 
mines but by these same labor agitators who are not 
workers and who seek to prevent others from work- 
ing. 

That they are mere labor agitators with no inten- 
tion or desire to work or to plan work for others is 
shown by the fact that Gov. Ammons last fall offered 
to the United Mine Workers thousands of acres of 
unused coal lands belonging to the State at ten 
cents per ton royalty which was the lowest price, but 
the Mine Workers were not courteous enough even to 
make any response or to take any interest in the 
matter. 

This business of organizing unions, fomenting 
strikes and especially of preparing for the use of 
violence and of accustoming their members to the 
idea of killing non-union men is a profession in itself. 

The labor leaders in this trouble are not miners, 
and very few of them are residents of Colorado. They 
have been imported into the State and especially into 
the strike districts for the purpose of inciting strikes 
and of directing hostilities against the authorities. 

Louis Tikas never was a miner himself but was 
brought from Denver to the strike district and em- 
ployed by the Miner's Union as interpreter and leader 
of the Greeks. These Greeks are reputed to be in 
large numbers veterans of the late war between 
Greece and Turkey. If this be true, under our im- 
migration laws they ought to be deported as unde- 
sirable citizens. Certainly this suggestion cannot 
be considered intemperate. Men who come to the 
United States and who take up arms against it and 
who, before they have learned to speak the English 
language, murder citizens of the State, are surely 
undesirable citizens and ought to be sent back to the 
land from which they came, and the federal govern- 
ment which permitted their importation owes it to 
the State of Colorado to take them away from us. 

Not a Colorado Problem 

In this connection we cannot too strongly impress 
upon the country that this is not a Colorado matter, 
but purely an interstate or national affair. The 
trouble did not originate in Colorado, nor is it of- 
ficered or financed here. The Miner's Union head- 



THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 9 

quarters is at Indianapolis, Ind., and from there have 
come the orders, the leaders and the money to sup- 
port this movement which is not merely war against 
Colorado, and which does not simply mean war 
against the United States, but which in its essence 
and ultimate aim is war against organized society 
everywhere. Their purpose is not confined to the 
destruction of authority here but their real purpose 
is to destroy authority everywhere. This is a very 
strong statement, but the history of the movement 
bears it out in full. 

W. T. Hickey, secretary of the State Federation 
of Labor, telegraphed Congressman Keating in com- 
menting on the situation and as a protest, "we take 
this to mean that they (the coal companies) will 
have protection of _ the federal troops." He says this 
as though he considered it a crime for the federal 
troops to protect the coal companies. His protest 
against protection for the companies shows that he 
knows that they have need of protection from some 
one, and from whom could it be except from him and 
his lawless companions? We predict that if the coal 
companies or their workmen are protected by the 
federal troops the strikers will dig up the guns they 
do not even pretend they have surrendered and com- 
mence war upon the United States just as they have 
been making war upon Colorado. 

Many outside papers, taking their cue from the 
position of our local papers, have called this striker's 
war, with its deplorable violence and loss of life, 
"The Shame of Colorado." It should more properly 
be called "The Shame of Labor Unionism" and "The 
Shame of the United States." 

We cannot too strongly insist that this is not in 
any sense a Colorado question. We are the focus of 
all eyes today because today the striker's war is here, 
but tomorrow it may be in West Virginia, or Ohio, 
or Pennsylvania, or Michigan, or any other State. 

The shame, the suffering, the disgrace, and the 
fear that Colorado suffers today may tomorrow be 
borne by any State against which the United Mine 
Workers of America may turn its attention. The 
pretext here is one thing, the pretext for the next 
outbreak may be another, but always the real cause 
is the fixed determination that the unions shall con- 
trol affairs in all industrial pursuits and that the 
laws of the labor union shall take precedence over 
the laws of the land. 



10 THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 

Abuse of the National Guard 

Nor should too much stress be laid upon abuse of 
the National Guard by the strikers and their allies. 
These unions have for many years carefully promul- 
gated a sentiment of hatred for soldiers whether of 
the regular army or of the National Guard and have 
even gone to the extent of declaring in their own 
constitutions that a man cannot belong to both the 
union and to the army, even as musicians. They also 
occupy the same attitude towards the police and 
sheriffs and their deputies and all other peace offi- 
cers. Their opposition is not to any particular form 
of authority but to authority of any kind. 

Depraved Leaders, Brutal Followers 

Practically all of the miners involved in this strike 
are ignorant, depraved and brutal foreigners, peasants 
from the lowest and most hopeless class of the peoples 
of southern Europe, who know little and care less 
for the principles of free government. By a mistaken 
national policy men of this type have been permitted 
to invade this country at the rate of over a million 
a year so that now they number in our midst many 
millions, all herded together in industrial centers and 
who threaten with their low ideals and base habits 
of life to destroy our civilization as the Huns and 
Vandals of old destroyed the civilization of ancient 
Rome and set the world back a thousand years during 
which rich and poor alike suffered from the horrors 
of poverty, superstition and oppression. 

These ignorant, depraved and brutal foreigners are 
led by better educated but as depraved and brutal 
officers who are usually of a foreign extraction, as 
far removed from American ideals of freedom of 
speech, freedom of worship, freedom of labor, and 
freedom of government as are these later importa- 
tions of ignorant herds, whom the leaders incite to 
deeds of violence the leaders themselves are too 
cowardly to commit. These men, depraved leaders 
and brutal followers together, number but two or 
three thousand and while exercising their own un- 
doubted right to refuse to work have denied to more 
than 10,000 of their fellowmen the right to work. 

The 10,000 workers have as much right to work as 
the 2,000 idlers have to be idle. 

Atrocities Unspeakable 

The strikers here as everywhere else endeavor by 
intimidation, by violence and by assassination to en- 
force their unlawful and unjust edict that the workers 



THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 11 

must quit their work. The lawful authorities of Colo- 
rado, acting under their sworn duty, endeavored to 
protect peaceable workingmen in their right to work 
and in their right to live. The strikers, denying both 
rights, defied the government and made open war 
against it. This is no exaggeration. They actually 
issued and published an open and formal declaration 
of war against Colorado and made a call for troops. 
They enlisted men to fight against Colorado ,they 
drilled these men into armies, they marched these 
armies from place to place, these armies fought 
battles against the State troops, they killed Colorado 
soldiers, occasionally in open battle but more often 
by assassination. They deliberately and treacher- 
ously murdered a hospital surgeon while wearing his 
Red Cross uniform and while performing his duty of 
ministering to a wounded man. After their leaders 
had made a solemn treaty and had agreed to a tem- 
porary truce these strikers openly marched across 
the country burning and destroying property and 
murdering Colorado's citizens. They have driven 
men, women and children into mines and have delib- 
erately and intentionally destroyed the shafts and 
openings with the intention of killing them by fire 
and suffocation. They have set fire to boarding 
houses and purposely burned alive unoffending and 
non-combatant workingmen. They have been guilty 
of atrocities unspeakable and innumerable. 

They are even now standing in flagrant defiance 
of the authority of the government of the United 
States and are treating, negotiating and haggling 
with the officers of the army as to the conditions 
and terms on which they will agree to surrender 
their arms. 

Treason 

Our Constitution defines treason as "levying war 
against the State or in adhering to its enemies, giving 
them aid or comfort." 

Under this definition all these strikers, but espe- 
cially their officers and leaders, as well as those 
disloyal State officials who are in league with them, 
and also those newspapers, women's organizations 
and Christian Citizenship Unions "adhering to them 
and giving them aid and comfort" are, all of them, 
guilty of treason against the State and that in its 
most heinous form. 

The law of organized society has ever been and 
must ever be that whoever raises his hand against 
the government is a traitor and must pay the penalty 



12 THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 

with his life. In no other way can organized govern- 
ment exist. Whoever complains of wrongs in ex- 
isting laws must turn his attention to their correction 
by peaceful means. He who attempts to correct his 
own wrongs by force is a criminal. He who attempts 
to correct the wrongs of society by force is a traitor. 

We speak of this organization as armies, with no 
idea of dignifying them or the purpose of their being, 
but only for the purpose of indicating their size and 
deliberate purpose. In reality they were frenzied 
mobs, drunk with the lust for blood, who rushed 
from mine to mine burning and destroying property, 
murdering men and mutilating their dead bodies like 
wild beasts or brutal barbarians and respecting 
neither flag of truce, red cross nor any of the rules 
of civilized warfare. 

In all these acts of treason, murder, pillage and 
arson the strikers have been aided, abetted and en- 
couraged by newspapers as venal and truckling as 
the strikers are depraved and vicious and by State 
officials who by reason of their betrayal of their 
oaths of office and of their duty as officials are more 
guilty of these treasons and assassinations than are 
the ignorant, misguided strikers whom these offi- 
cials and newspapers have by their appeals to passion 
and prejudice influenced to commit the actual deeds 
of violence. 

By reason of the reign of terror established by 
these strikers, agitators and newspapers, freedom of 
speech and freedom to work have been in a large 
measure denied to the people of Colorado. 

The strike has more or less completely involved 
seven different coal mining districts, some of them 
400 miles apart, and in which are over a hundred 
mines, each of which must have its detail of soldiers 
to insure protection. There are also many towns, 
railroad bridges and other properties all subject to 
attack and destruction. 

Good Work of the National Guard 

The Colorado National Guard has served in these 
strike districts with less than half the number of 
men demanded by the regular army officers for the 
same purposes. They were not furnished with suf- 
ficient clothing or supplies, they received no pay for 
over three months by reason of the worse than 
treasonable actions of our State auditor and other 
officials, and they were denied that moral support 
from press and people that a nation's troops are 
entitled to in time of war. In spite of all these diffi- 



THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 13 

culties our State troops for six months maintained 
absolute peace, quiet and safety in the strike dis- 
tricts without loss of life on either side and without 
loss of property of any kind to any one. Under the 
most trying circumstances, subjected daily to the 
vilest abuse of the most brutal of men and of women 
almost as brutal, they conducted themselves with 
a dignity, decorum and sense of military duty worthy 
of the highest commendation and praise. 

Commendation and Denunciation 

In view of all these facts, conditions and circum- 
stances we call upon the country to revise and to 
reverse its opinion of the government and troops of 
the State of Colorado and to commend them for their 
efforts to properly solve a question that did not 
originate here but has been thrust upon us by the 
attitude of the country at large upon the questions of 
labor and immigration. We call upon Congress to 
immediately pass the Burnett bill which will, in large 
measure, prevent the immigration to this country of 
these illiterate, depraved and criminal hordes which 
are now pouring into this land and who threaten its 
very life. The perpetuity of American institutions, 
the safety of life and property, and the protection 
of our own people are of greater importance to us 
and to the world than is the maintenance of a 
maudlin sentiment which permits the invasion of our 
country by ignorant hordes who know nothing of 
and who would ruthlessly destroy its beneficent in- 
stitutions. 

We most heartily commend Gen. John Chase, com- 
manding, and the officers and men of our National 
Guard for their patient forbearance and soldierly 
attitude under the most trying and adverse conditions 
and circumstances. 

We commend Governor Ammons for his efforts to 
maintain law and order in the community. 

We most severely denounce those disloyal State 
officials whose weakness and treachery tied the Gov- 
ernor's hands and gave aid and comfort to enemies 
of the State. 

We as severely denounce those newspapers which 
by their inflammable articles and comments, and by 
their prejudiced and distorted reports, have at- 
tempted to place the blame where it does not belong, 
have defamed and humiliated Colorado and its gov- 
ernment, both civil and military, and have excused, 
justified and been potent factors in inciting those 
deeds of violence that have disgraced the past and 
which now endanger the future of the State 



14 THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 

We as warmly commend those newspapers that 
have told the truth and have bravely stood for law 
and order. 

We cannot find words strong enough to express 
our horror and detestation of those infamous men 
and hysterical women who as leaders and advisers 
of their ignorant followers, or as their defenders and 
apologists, are the real traitors and murderers in this 
frightful striker's war. Their words and their deeds 
are ineradicable blots on the pages of the history of 
our State and of our civilization. 

Peace Before Prosperity 

There must be peace before there can be prosper- 
ity. There must be order in the community and 
safety for life and limb before we can turn our at- 
tention to the correction of existing wrongs. Violence 
begets violence and must be repressed by the stern 
hand of organized society. 

The good book tells us that if a man will not work 
neither shall he eat. We contend that if a man will 
not work, if he prefers that his wife and children 
shall starve, he at least shall not be permitted to kill 
and murder other men who do wish to work in order 
to save their wives and children from starvation. 

It is no longer a question as to whether non-union 
men shall be allowed to WORK in Colorado, it is now 
a question as to whether or not any man shall be 
allowed to LIVE without permission from the labor 
union. 

Wars for Freedom 

Fifty years ago we fought a great war in this 
country to establish the right of a man not to be com- 
pelled to work for another unless he wished to do so. 

Now we are facing a threatened war which we must 
fight to establish the right of a man to work for an- 
other if he wishes to do so. 

That war was fought to free men from slavery to 
private individuals.. This war if it comes, and it 
seems as though come it must, will have to be fought 
to free men from slavery to private organizations. 

Both the slaveholding individual before the war 
and the slaveholding labor union of the present pre- 
tend that the slaves are being held for their own 
good, though against their own will, and both claim 
that if the slaves will not voluntarily submit to their 
masters they must be beaten into submission ox 
killed. Both hypocritically claim that this is for the 
good of humanity. 



THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 15 

True Theory of Employment 

The true theory is that every employer shall be 
allowed to employ whom he pleases and every em- 
ployee shall be allowed to work for whom he pleases 
so that employer and employee are agreed as to the 
terms and conditions of the employment. Any other 
principle is a denial of freedom to the individual and 
a denial of freedom is the essence of slavery. 

Fundamental Principles of 
Government 

We reaffirm in the most positive terms and as the 
fundamental principles of popular and free govern- 
ment: 

1st. The right to worship God, every man in his 
own way. 

2nd. The right of free speech, with responsibility 
for the abuse of this right. 

3rd. The right of labor to be free from any master, 
religious, personal, corporate, or union. 

4th. The right of capital to the safety of its in- 
vestments, and that it be subject to no tyranny Of 
private organization but only to the majesty of the 
law. 

5th. The right of every man to protection by the 
State of his life, his limbs, and his property. 

6th. The impartial enforcement of every law 
whether it be for the protection of labor or for the 
protection of property. 

7th. Swift, sure and severe punishment for all 
offences against the law, and especially of such high 
crimes as treason and murder. 

We call upon all good and patriotic citizens to 
stand ready to uphold these fundamental rights with 
every power of voice, pen and vote, with every ounce 
of strength and every drop of blood, with every power 
that organized and civilized society can bring to bear. 

In this way, and in this way only, can our fair 
State, our beautiful country, our boasted civilization, 
our ancient rights, and even our lives be saved. 



16 THE STRIKE IN COLORADO 

Submitted as a Warning 

Fraternally submitted to our brothers of the Order 
throughout the country and to the world outside as a 
warning of the danger that threatens the Republic 
through the importation into this country of these 
lawless forces that are breeding treason and making 
war upon our dearest institutions. 

Kensington Council No. 16, Jr. O. U. A. M., Denver, 
Colo., by its Committee appointed for the pur- 
pose of drawing up and of promulgating tnis 
statement. 

C. W. VARNUM, Chairman, 
L. A. HASTINGS, Secretary, 
H. H. EDDY, 
O. B. SCOBEY, 
F. L. VARNEY. 



We hereby certify that the above resolution was 
this day unanimously adopted at a regular meeting 
of Kensington Council No. 16, Jr. O. U. A. M., and 
the Committee was instructed to have 5,000 copies 
printed in pamphlet form and to send a copy to all 
National and State Officers and to every Council of 
the Order, and that a copy be sent to the American, 
the official organ of the Order, with a request that it 
be published. 

The Committee was further instructed to transmit 
a copy to his Excellency the President of the United 
States, a copy to each member of the Congress, and a 
copy to the Governor of every State in the Union. 

The Committee was also instructed to transmit a 
copy to our Representatives in Congress, with the 
request that they present it as a memorial to the 
House of Representatives, and a copy to our Sen- 
ators, with the request that they present it as a 
memorial to the Senate of the United States, and 
that they be requested to secure the printing of this 
statement in the Congressional Record. 

Witness our hands at Denver, Colorado, this 19th 
day of May, A. D. 1914. 

(Seal.) EDWARD H. WAHL, 

L. T. FROST, Councilor. 

Assistant Recording Secretary. 



This statement was printed 
in the Congressional Record 
of May 29, 1914, at the 
request of Senator Thomas. 



y^RARY OF CONGRESS 

027 292 840 A 



"To bear true allegiance 

to our government — its 

institutions, constitutions 

and laws." 



"Among free men there can be 

no successful appeal from the 

ballot to the bullet, and they 

who take such appeal are sure 

to lose their case and 

pay the cost." 

Abraham Lincoln 




